The Cooperative Republic

The 1968 elections allowed the PNC to rule without the UF. The PNC
won thirty seats, the PPP nineteen seats, and the UF four seats.
However, many observers claimed the elections were marred by
manipulation and coercion by the PNC. The PPP and UF were part of
Guyana's political landscape but were ignored as Burnham began to
convert the machinery of state into an instrument of the PNC.

After the 1968 elections, Burnham's policies became more leftist as
he announced he would lead Guyana to socialism. He consolidated his
dominance of domestic policies through gerrymandering, manipulation of
the balloting process, and politicalization of the civil service. A few
Indo-Guyanese were coopted into the PNC, but the ruling party was
unquestionably the embodiment of the Afro-Guyanese political will.
Although the Afro-Guyanese middle class was uneasy with Burnham's
leftist leanings, the PNC remained a shield against Indo-Guyanese
dominance. The support of the Afro-Guyanese community allowed the PNC to
bring the economy under control and to begin organizing the country into
cooperatives.

On February 23, 1970, Guyana declared itself a
""cooperative republic"" and cut all ties to the
British monarchy. The governor general was replaced as head of state by
a ceremonial president. Relations with Cuba were improved, and Guyana
became a force in the Nonaligned Movement. In August 1972, Burnham
hosted the Conference of Foreign Ministers of Nonaligned Countries in
Georgetown. He used this opportunity to address the evils of imperialism
and the need to support African liberation movements in southern Africa.
Burnham also let Cuban troops use Guyana as a transit point on their way
to the war in Angola in the mid- 1970s.

In the early 1970s, electoral fraud became blatant in Guyana. PNC
victories always included overseas voters, who consistently and
overwhelmingly voted for the ruling party. The police and military
intimidated the Indo-Guyanese. The army was accused of tampering with
ballot boxes.

Considered a low point in the democratic process, the 1973 elections
were followed by an amendment to the constitution that abolished legal
appeals to the Privy Council in London. After consolidating power on the
legal and electoral fronts, Burnham turned to mobilizing the masses for
what was to be Guyana's cultural revolution. A program of national
service was introduced that placed an emphasis on self-reliance, loosely
defined as Guyana's population feeding, clothing, and housing itself
without outside help.

Government authoritarianism increased in 1974 when Burnham advanced
the ""paramountcy of the party."" All organs of the
state would be considered agencies of the ruling PNC and subject to its
control. The state and the PNC became interchangeable; PNC objectives
were now public policy.

Burnham's consolidation of power in Guyana was not total; opposition
groups were tolerated within limits. For instance, in 1973 the Working
People's Alliance (WPA) was founded. Opposed to Burnham's
authoritarianism, the WPA was a multiethnic combination of politicians
and intellectuals that advocated racial harmony, free elections, and
democratic socialism. Although the WPA did not become an official
political party until 1979, it evolved as an alternative to Burnham's
PNC and Jagan's PPP.

Jagan's political career continued to decline in the 1970s.
Outmaneuvered on the parliamentary front, the PPP leader tried another
tactic. In April 1975, the PPP ended its boycott of parliament with
Jagan stating that the PPP's policy would change from noncooperation and
civil resistance to critical support of the Burnham regime. Soon after,
Jagan appeared on the same platform with Prime Minister Burnham at the
celebration of ten years of Guyanese independence, on May 26, 1976.

Despite Jagan's conciliatory move, Burnham had no intention of
sharing powers and continued to secure his position. When overtures
intended to bring about new elections and PPP participation in the
government were brushed aside, the largely Indo-Guyanese sugar work
force went on a bitter strike. The strike was broken, and sugar
production declined steeply from 1976 to 1977. The PNC postponed the
1978 elections, opting instead for a referendum to be held in July 1978,
proposing to keep the incumbent assembly in power.

The July 1978 national referendum was poorly received. Although the
PNC government proudly proclaimed that 71 percent of eligible voters
participated and that 97 percent approved the referendum, other
estimates put turnout at 10 to 14 percent. The low turnout was caused in
large part by a boycott led by the PPP, WPA, and other opposition
forces.

Burnham's control over Guyana began to weaken when the Jonestown
massacre brought unwanted international attention. In the 1970s, Jim
Jones, leader of the People's Temple of Christ, moved more than 1,000 of
his followers from San Francisco to form Jonestown, a utopian
agricultural community near Port Kaituma in western Guyana. The People's
Temple of Christ was regarded by members of the Guyanese government as a
model agricultural community that shared its vision of settling the
hinterland and its view of cooperative socialism. The fact that the
People's Temple was well-equipped with openly flaunted weapons hinted
that the community had the approval of members of the PNC's inner
circle. Complaints of abuse by leaders of the cult prompted United
States congressman Leo Ryan to fly to Guyana to investigate. The San
Francisco-area representative was shot and killed by members of the
People's Temple as he was boarding or airplane at Port Kaituma to return
to Georgetown. Fearing further publicity, Jones and more than 900 of his
followers died in a massive communal murder and suicide. The November
1978 Jonestown massacre suddenly put the Burnham government under
intense foreign scrutiny, especially from the United States.
Investigations into the massacre led to allegations that the Guyanese
government had links to the fanatical cult.

Although the bloody memory of Jonestown faded, Guyanese politics
experienced a violent year in 1979. Some of this violence was directed
against the WPA, which had emerged as a vocal critic of the state and of
Burnham in particular. One of the party's leaders, Walter Rodney, and
several professors at the University of Guyana were arrested on arson
charges. The professors were soon released, and Rodney was granted bail.
WPA leaders then organized the alliance into Guyana's most vocal
opposition party.

As 1979 wore on, the level of violence continued to escalate. In
October Minister of Education Vincent Teekah was mysteriously shot to
death. The following year, Rodney was killed by a car bomb. The PNC
government quickly accused Rodney of being a terrorist who had died at
the hands of his own bomb and charged his brother Donald with being an
accomplice. Later investigation implicated the Guyanese government,
however. Rodney was a well- known leftist, and the circumstances of his
death damaged Burnham's image with many leaders and intellectuals in
less- developed countries who earlier had been willing to overlook the
authoritarian nature of his government.

A new constitution was promulgated in 1980. The old ceremonial post of president was
abolished, and the head of government became the executive president,
chosen, as the former position of prime minister had been, by the
majority party in the National Assembly. Burnham automatically became
Guyana's first executive president and promised elections later in the
year. In elections held on December 15, 1980, the PNC claimed 77 percent
of the vote and forty-one seats of the popularly elected seats, plus the
ten chosen by the regional councils. The PPP and UF won ten and two
seats, respectively. The WPA refused to participate in an electoral
contest it regarded as fraudulent. Opposition claims of electoral fraud
were upheld by a team of international observers headed by Britain's
Lord Avebury.

The economic crisis facing Guyana in the early 1980s deepened
considerably, accompanied by the rapid deterioration of public services,
infrastructure, and overall quality of life. Blackouts occurred almost
daily, and water services were increasingly unsatisfactory. The litany
of Guyana's decline included shortages of rice and sugar (both produced
in the country), cooking oil, and kerosene. While the formal economy
sank, the black market economy in Guyana thrived.

In the midst of this turbulent period, Burnham underwent surgery for
a throat ailment. On August 6, 1985, while in the care of Cuban doctors,
Guyana's first and only leader since independence unexpectedly died. An
epoch had abruptly ended. Guyana was suddenly in the post-Burnham era.